


Mission Control

by oudeteron



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Backstory, Canon Quotes, Cold War, Fraternization, M/M, MGS3, Pre-Canon, bickering with one's CO, conflict of interests?!, proper military conduct is for the proper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:03:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oudeteron/pseuds/oudeteron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Days before the Virtuous Mission, the time to enjoy small luxuries is running short, and things might not be the same in the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission Control

**Author's Note:**

> An attempt to flesh out some more backstory for BB and Zero. This fic doesn't stray too far from the events of MGS3, but the beginning would have been taking place very slightly before the in-game timeline. An extended version of my notes (complete with where the references used came from and elaboration on the larger context) can be found in the [original LJ post](http://oudeteron.livejournal.com/180873.html) for this fic. 
> 
> **Warning:** some very brief mentions of canon torture in the last section. I didn't tag it with the AO3 warning because it's not a graphic real-time description (and the AO3 warning is for graphic violence), but the scene does get alluded to. Let me know if you consider the allusion specific enough to warrant the AO3 warning and I'll change it.

Everything about Major Zero's bedroom was neat: the files set aside on the desk; the sparse but elegant furniture; even the remainder of the evening's refreshments seemed to fit seamlessly into the scene, empty cups and dishes swept into the corner of the desk otherwise occupied. The only concession to chaos was the heap of discarded clothes, a worn leather jacket its most striking component. Atop one of the cabinets by the wall stood a gramophone, playing a tune from decades past that implored anyone who would listen to “dream a little dream of me”. 

Had Jack fancied himself smart just then, he would have innocently asked if nostalgia could make a man feel younger—but when you were on your knees and craving touch more with each passing second, you thought twice about taunting the one you were hoping to get it from. The bed creaked as the two figures on it moved, the intrusive sound concealed somewhat by the music.

 _Zero had observed Jack while the latter undressed, only to quit the task midway and climb onto the bed. Half-naked, he looked inviting and supremely careless. He was twenty-nine; not the cliché youthful ideal some would suppose at all, but to Zero he was only starting to get most interesting. Better yet for the moment that he was_ interested, _as his hand completed its descent to the older man's crotch. Zero would have tried to shove him away—this was supposed to be embarrassing—but it was the thought that counted, wasn't it? That, and a bit more time._

_“No one's keeping tabs here.” Jack's voice was that strange mix of exasperation and respect it would always assume just before they did anything. Perhaps it was the unconventional fact of sleeping with a superior. Zero had never slept with a superior, nor did he intend to start now; none of the dignitaries he still answered to made as pleasant a company as Jack on the best of days, which spoke volumes of the system. But, instead of dwelling on that further, he grabbed the younger man by the back of his head to draw him into a kiss, demanding, hoping it was confirmation enough._

_None of them came out unscathed and Jack's body itself was a testament to that, marred with scars of varying shape and intensity. Zero traced one that curved over his hipbone and trailed off below the waistband of his jeans; the touch made Jack shiver and he kissed harder, while Zero set out to dispose of everything there was in the way. The jeans were only bunched up around Jack's knees when he lay half beside, half over Zero's body and pinned his hands to the headboard, the challenge playful and plain._

_Scars meant nothing next to a clear face. It showed that, even now, Jack didn't suffer from nightmares every time he slept._

_They turned over in the sheets, their contact somewhere on the boundary between passionate fondling and languid wrestling where either option was equally probable, but the fabric still binding Jack's ankles was quickly becoming more trouble than it was worth. “Just a moment,” Zero said, planting his palm in the centre of the other's chest, gently immobilizing. As soon as he had pried the offending garment off for good, Jack opened his thighs gratefully and pulled him back down, into another kiss, moulding together everything else too. It was a pleasure to see how single-minded arousal made him, concentration wound tight almost to the point of what he showed in combat._

_Properly naked now, his body felt oddly snakelike. Not because he'd try to wriggle away, but his skin slipped in Zero's arms even as their lips met again, the kiss sloppy and entirely unlike what either of them was supposed to be. What they_ were, _only not in a situation that stole one's breath and hacked at the precious chain of command until there was nothing left of the links except wanting. Their legs meshed like a jigsaw—if it was usual for jigsaws to slide in and out of place slick with sweat, that is. Jack's face was a near-perfect profile relief as he pressed his cheek to the pillow, letting out intermittent little gasps, grinding against him with abandon that bordered on uncanny._

_A remark about the impatience of youth would have been apt, but that wasn't how either of them liked to play it, even if the truth of it could hardly be disputed half the time. But then again, Zero thought, what use in teasing a man who was making you feel better than you had believed possible, at this point? Zero had never been one to indulge. He was now. And he wasn't that old yet. There was so much to savour in this alignment: threading his fingers through Jack's hair, the hot exhales right after they kissed, the criss-cross of the scars that made Jack's skin feel like a badly repaired vessel held together by sheer force of will. Or technology, but Zero pushed that thought aside._

_Jack's hand had begun to stroke him again, with purpose this time, and it was the closest Zero had come to dismissing reason in a long, long while. The enthusiasm Jack was treating him with was infectious, but at the same time, rushing this would be a disgrace._

_Apart from that, he didn't intend to dictate the proceedings and was more than happy when Jack seized the opportunity to do so, taking Zero's wrist and bringing his fingers to his mouth. His tongue curled around one, two of them; he gave them the frantic attention of someone who wouldn't wait longer than absolutely necessary to get his way, making his intent tonight blatantly obvious._

_That was a good job, too, because Jack never asked for these things out loud._

_Breaking apart for a few moments, Zero put on the gramophone and rummaged in the drawer._

Some time in consequence, all Jack wanted was to crash and burn. His hands clenched on the pillow as he braced himself for the onslaught that never came; instead, Zero eased inside him as though they had all the time in the world and could only be expected to use it up. A hand alighted on Jack's chest, teasing a nipple before moving to trace an invisible string downwards, across his abdomen and lower from there, stopping just short of where it would have counted. The moan was out of his throat before he had a chance to choke it down.

It wasn't like he had no experience. For want of a diversion, he had fooled around with a few of his peers—and more than just fooled with one of them—but he couldn't recall those clumsy favours between comrades ever making him so frustrated. Some of his short-lived partners had been older than him, too, though not by much. They probably wouldn't have been able to deny themselves in the first place, let alone invent elaborate schemes to delay gratification for him.

With Zero, this was different. Even, measured. Leaving Jack to scramble for control he no longer had, to learn “patience”.

Should he beg? No, that'd be pathetic; maybe he was desperate but he had to save some dignity—oh damn that felt good, keep doing that... 

Zero murmured back something that might have been affirmation, but in the end just sounded amused. What the hell, Jack thought, he better not have said any of that out loud. He gave a rough sigh as Zero's hips drew back, again, the slowness of it agonizing more than anything; how much longer was he supposed to stand this? How long—it didn't matter when the next thrust shook him down to his bones, just like _(better than)_ he had wanted it this entire damn time. Finally. _Finally,_ his mind repeated in a daze, _finally,_ the friction and the heat, _finally_ the angle was just right, finally, finally...

And it didn't matter how long it had taken after that, with a familiar firm hand clasping over his cock, no restrictions now, he could let go. Had to, was invited to. He embraced the sensation and surrendered to it like he never could, never would to an enemy. 

He thought he heard his own name moaned, quiet, but he could have imagined it.

The music had stopped. Jack couldn't even say when for sure, but must have been a while. The afterglow was like white noise. He noticed through his sensory haze that he was being clutched to Zero's chest, close enough for it to feel like shelter. _Huh._ He didn't need coddling. Wasn't he the best they had to offer in FOX?

Carefully, he made to disentangle himself after a minute or two, finding Zero had enough sense to let him go; he flopped onto his back to stare at the ceiling and beyond. His breathing was still ragged, but controlled at this point. In, out. Easy. From the corner of his eye, he saw that Zero had sat up to take off the used condom, dropping it to the floor to be cleaned away later. 

“'S not like you,” Jack observed, attitude suitably lackadaisical, “making a mess.”

Zero just shook his head, settling down beside him like it was the most ordinary thing in the world for the two of them to do, lying together naked behind the scenes. “You've never been tired?” 

A question so rhetorical it was sickening: it wasn't exhaustion that was ever remarkable, only the opportunity to indulge it. Jack turned his head so that he could look at his commander in that rare dishevelled state he hadn't been privy to until fairly recently. Unguarded. What struck him was the hair, grey strands not neatly slicked back for once, but matted and falling in front of Zero's face. That, at least, no one else on the job got to see.

–

“What was it you called me earlier, plunker or...?”

It had been an unexpected and bizarre scene, not only because it was so uncommon for Zero to resort to bad language—if the word even qualified for that, because Jack sure as hell hadn't heard that insult in his life. Well, he hadn't until tonight, and all because he'd expressed disdain at being offered tea earlier in the evening instead of some decent _non-ration_ coffee at long last. To his relief, it turned out Zero had some at his place, though how long it had been sitting neglected in the pantry was better left unmentioned. He'd take it over rations.

Either way, Zero must have found it funny too, what with his laughter just having interrupted the question. For someone who wasn't likely to burst out laughing without some significant provocation, that bordered on alarming. “You mean plonker? It's nothing, really, never mind.”

Jack didn't trust these nothings, and since his opinion mattered for a change, he pursued it. “Why say it then? Come on. It has to mean something.”

“All right,” Zero's voice assumed the businesslike quality Jack was more used to hearing in settings of authority than during the times they were actively turning officialdom on its head, “the word plonker has been a constant in English slang since at least the first quarter of the century. In 1949, it was recorded in _A Dictionary of—_ ”

“Major, that's not what I meant!” Jack groaned. It was the first address that had come to mind, and it was only the short silence afterwards warning him that, for the first time tonight, a line had been crossed somewhere. 

“ _So,_ relatively speaking, it's nothing to get excited about. And what did I give you my name for?”

It was hard to decide if he should apologize or not; in the end, Jack took the path of explanation with a dash of regret on the side. “Sorry, I...it doesn't seem sensible to drop it altogether.” _Just imagine the trouble you'd be in,_ he wanted to say; he couldn't begin to contemplate what would happen to him if the brass got wind of this. He didn't doubt that Zero—David, was it really so hard to remember they had names?—would pull any and all strings to soften the impact, but that scenario was the last thing Jack wanted to be the cause of. Besides, how would you even pull strings like that if you already were, what was the word again, discredited—

“Of course we cannot drop it. The in and out of uniform rule would apply.”

Stated so bluntly, that helped. Jack couldn't resist a chuckle, nuzzling to the warm expanse of skin under the covers. There was little doubt as to where the current situation fell—and that it'd stay that way, however many blunders he made here.

They dozed for some time, both too wrapped up in this rare inaction to disturb it, but neither ready to fall asleep quite yet. The muted lamplight painted the room, seemed to flicker along the drawn curtains like a candle would. It made the outside world, late summer 1964, easy to forget. 

Zero sighed, stretching towards the bedside table to switch it off. The instant before the light went out, the lines in his face were so noticeable that it caught Jack off guard, and he wished for a second that he could turn the lamp back on without looking like a complete moron, just to make sure Zero wasn't as weary as all that. 

“We'd better not get too used to our comforts, that's for certain,” came the deceptively calm voice in his ear.

“You mean the mission?” The plan dictated that they leave in a week, and although Jack had been informed that there was an operation looming, that was about the extent of his understanding of the matter. When he tried asking, Zero would have none of it.

“I will give you the briefing as usual.”

“But now would be—”

“What's that, are you really so eager to be out there with a knife again?”

Well, that was a new one. Zero was the last person to show sympathy for laziness, and Jack would likely have stared at him had there still been light. “You're the one who keeps saying the battlefield's never too far away.”

“A week from now on is not _far_.”

“Patience, right,” Jack muttered under his breath. It was heard anyway, and so refreshing that he didn't need to stifle his voice or mask his words.

After all, the real point of exchanges like these always lay in their silences. They had the moment, but who knew if there would be another? Jack made a mental note to stick with some harmless pillow talk if—or, as he hoped, when—that next time came.

*

Nightmares.

Realistic ones were bad all right, but what did reality mean when he was locked up in a prison cell, his entire system an overwrought conduit for pain and electricity, his mind a near-palpable mess as consciousness returned, ripping him from the landscape and the strange body he'd inhabited even as one last time he tore the encroaching monsters into shreds, vision tinted red—

_Was it a dream?_

It had been a reflex far more than a deliberate decision, reporting to base after an unforeseeable event, albeit not a strictly real one. The line was secure and working, even after all that—don't go there, Snake; focus. The frequency 140.85 was answered almost instantly. 

“Major...what year is this?”

Best conversation-starters of the decade, volume one. It was like he was trying to provoke Zero into a lecture of some sort, though how getting mocked about this was gonna help he couldn't for the life of him tell.

“It's 1964. You're in a cell in Groznyj Grad. What did they do, Snake, make you drink an entire keg of vodka?”

Between the codename and the tinny echo of the receiver, only Zero's trademark sarcasm sounded genuine. Funny to think that was what anchored him to reality now, but with a broken body and his eyesight suddenly alien, it was no surprise that he clung to sound.

Snake— _you are not to mention your real name_ —could tell that Zero was trying to be reassuring; that alone was a serious thing. He shouldn't have been able to notice this, for one. Then again, nothing was in its usual place here; not even his uniform, if he could still call these battered fatigues that. No clear-cut distinctions to use as guidelines, but only shades of grey. Grey was all it was going to be from here on out, most likely. It hurt to think about.

So he pretended to hear that voice elsewhere (anywhere else would do), first memory come, first served: arms wrapped around him as if to keep his heart from hammering out of his chest. As sweaty then as he was now, just not disgusting-cold. Static. Sanctuary.

He didn't mean to need that, goddammit. 

Fast-forward to the moment. Why on earth were they talking about 98-proof vodka? 

Why on earth was it _helping_?

“Snake, are you okay? You're not going loony on me, are you?”

“Not at all. I'll make it back no matter how much of that sulphuric acid they make me drink.”

It was always something like that, keeping him in his right mind on this mission gone haywire. He would never have guessed he'd appreciate Zero's talk of James Bond or afternoon tea, but they all combined in a welcome diversion regardless of the annoyance Snake made sure to display whenever these topics came up. Between himself and Major Don't-Name-Names, they spent more time bickering over the radio than they had in bed now that words were all they had to go on. Of course, no one suspected a thing. It was just not done, what they did, and if someone did have the gall then it better be kept in silence.

“Good show! I'm sure you'll find a way out of there.”

Sound. Always a presence between them; steady, reliable. Just as he was about to cut the connection, Jack remembered the song.

“Yeah. Dream a little dream of your own while you wait for word from me.”

If a person could ever hear a smile, this was it.


End file.
